Feedback: Guild Wars 2 Mac 64-Bit Client

Comments

@Marco.6324 said:
Hi, i've logged into the game after 2 years of not playing bought the expansions and downloaded the 64 bit client because the 32 bit version is not running at all.
I am experiencing very slow loading screens, get killed by invisible enemies and bump into invisible objects at lowest settings making the game extremely unplayable and really frustrating.
mac pro 13 2012
2,9 GHz Intel Core i7
8GB 1600 MHz DDR3
Intel HD Graphics 4000
I know this mac is kinda outdated but with the 32 bit version I never had problems and could play even with medium settings.
I really hope that we will get some feedback soon.

Not sure how much you've read back on the thread, but if you can get hold of an external SSD drive, the game runs much better off that than off a regular HD.

Many others are unsatisfied with the decision of shutting down the 32 bit client and we do not even know the reason behind this. I just hope that we will get an answer soon and know how "us", owners of old macs can play this game.

Well, when my 32-bit app died, this is what someone told me, for what it's worth:

@Figlilly.3907 said:
It's probably because the 32 bit client uses Cider and I believe it is no longer a thing having been bought by Nvidia. ArenaNet probably no longer have a license to develop or improve it.

There's not much that's interesting to tell you all right now. We've been investigating the previously mentioned problems.
I posted in the AMA yesterday that we have reproduced some of the performance issues and we believe we've eliminated asset loading as the source. We are exploring other possible sources now.

For anyone having issues who is still using the Mac 32 bit client, the fix will be to switch to the 64 bit client. We changed the min spec with the release of Path of Fire to the 64 bit client for both Mac and Windows. This new min spec applies to all of Living World Season 4 as you need to own PoF to play.

Hi! I meet the min specs for playing Guild Wars 2 on Mac but scenery does not load in most maps on the 64-bit client. See pics below:
Notice the near 10 minute break between screenshots. More than enough time to make a cup of tea but I thought I'd be able to play the game when I got back, LOL.
For people who use an external SDD, do you think purchasing one will fix my issue?

I posted in the AMA yesterday that we have reproduced some of the performance issues and we believe we've eliminated asset loading as the source. We are exploring other possible sources now.

@Ester Sauter.7694 said:
For anyone having issues who is still using the Mac 32 bit client, the fix will be to switch to the 64 bit client.

There's no point telling people to switch to the 64-bit client when it doesn't run on their systems well enough to play it. We've been waiting an awfully long time for a fix. Many of us who can run the 64-bit game have to run it off (rather expensive) SSD add-ons, and even then it's not ideal. The fact is, if the 32-bit client is now dead for everyone, you are going to lose a sizable chunk of your Mac players.

After all these months, the only thing you can tell us is that you've eliminated one possibility of what might be the problem. I'm sorry, but from this end, it doesn't feel like there's much effort going into it, or much reason to believe in a solution coming anytime soon. Or at all.

What!? Really? switch clients? I kept the 32-bits Client because the 64-client crashes every 10-15 minutes, the sound and models takes way longer to load and the maps load sometimes without terrain... and it's been almost a year and no solution appears for that in the 64-client, I feel like I'm moving from a problem into another. It's kinda unfair for Mac users, but I understand that there's some problems you just can't fix.

@inkhorn.3409 said:
Hi! I meet the min specs for playing Guild Wars 2 on Mac but scenery does not load in most maps on the 64-bit client. See pics below:
(screen shots removed for repost...)
Notice the near 10 minute break between screenshots. More than enough time to make a cup of tea but I thought I'd be able to play the game when I got back, LOL.
For people who use an external SDD, do you think purchasing one will fix my issue?

Is your internal storage drive a 'spinning' Hard Disk Drive (HDD), or a 'non-spinning' Solid State Drive (SSD)?
If the former, I would say Yes, an external SSD will 'improve' your playability of the Mac GW2 64-bit app, from my own experience, and possibly as mentioned by a few others here. Not cheap, yet it does not have to be a big SSD drive, and even a 128 GB SSD should do a good job.
If already have a SSD inside, then I would say your issue is possibly not from a slow storage drive, and probably from something else within the app itself or other specs of your Mac. Adding memory will also help your Mac feel snappier, yet a HDD to SSD exchange is quite a big speed improvement to make your Mac feel 'like new' speedy, kinda.

Then again, I have not experienced such prolonged delay of reading and displaying the game environment.
Your situation is definitely 'unplayable'. Feel sorry for you.
Let's all hope that 'up there' has some great improvements waiting to be released, and (most) all Mac GW2-ers play happily on their beloved Macs soon.
Hope...

If I were to guess I would say your problem is the memory as it looks like the characters are there but the background textures are not. The minimum you can get with an iMac now is 8 GB so I am guessing it is an older machine? If the plan is to solve it with money go to someplace like OWC and see if you can up the ram . An SSD would mainly affect slow load speeds, check if you are maxing out your memory or something in the activity monitor. That will also give you an idea how your network pipe is doing as that is what things looked for me in one online game that I tried via dialup.

@inkhorn.3409 said:
Hi! I meet the min specs for playing Guild Wars 2 on Mac but scenery does not load in most maps on the 64-bit client. See pics below:
(screen shots removed for repost...)
Notice the near 10 minute break between screenshots. More than enough time to make a cup of tea but I thought I'd be able to play the game when I got back, LOL.
For people who use an external SDD, do you think purchasing one will fix my issue?

Is your internal storage drive a 'spinning' Hard Disk Drive (HDD), or a 'non-spinning' Solid State Drive (SSD)?
If the former, I would say Yes, an external SSD will 'improve' your playability of the Mac GW2 64-bit app, from my own experience, and possibly as mentioned by a few others here. Not cheap, yet it does not have to be a big SSD drive, and even a 128 GB SSD should do a good job.
If already have a SSD inside, then I would say your issue is possibly not from a slow storage drive, and probably from something else within the app itself or other specs of your Mac. Adding memory will also help your Mac feel snappier, yet a HDD to SSD exchange is quite a big speed improvement to make your Mac feel 'like new' speedy, kinda.

Then again, I have not experienced such prolonged delay of reading and displaying the game environment.
Your situation is definitely 'unplayable'. Feel sorry for you.
Let's all hope that 'up there' has some great improvements waiting to be released, and (most) all Mac GW2-ers play happily on their beloved Macs soon.
Hope...

Actually, prices are not that bad out there if you do not buy from apple. More expensive than a HDD still, but reasonable. I picked up a 1/2 TB enterprise grade external SSD and put it in a USB3 case, which is approximately the same speed (more or less depending on the test) as a thunderbolt 2.

I posted in the AMA yesterday that we have reproduced some of the performance issues and we believe we've eliminated asset loading as the source. We are exploring other possible sources now.

@Ester Sauter.7694 said:
For anyone having issues who is still using the Mac 32 bit client, the fix will be to switch to the 64 bit client.

There's no point telling people to switch to the 64-bit client when it doesn't run on their systems well enough to play it. We've been waiting an awfully long time for a fix. Many of us who can run the 64-bit game have to run it off (rather expensive) SSD add-ons, and even then it's not ideal. The fact is, if the 32-bit client is now dead for everyone, you are going to lose a sizable chunk of your Mac players.

After all these months, the only thing you can tell us is that you've eliminated one possibility of what might be the problem. I'm sorry, but from this end, it doesn't feel like there's much effort going into it, or much reason to believe in a solution coming anytime soon. Or at all.

Actually, I was just reminded yesterday apple plans to completely drop 32 bit support with 10.14 so now is a good time to make sure your 32 bit apps are updated anyway.

As to SSDs being expensive, do not go by apple's prices. Get their standard drive in your machine and use it for data then buy an external SSD from some third party. I had done that well before I even started playing GW2 as it makes your whole system better and faster.

Many apps now, especially ones like games, pretty much require an SSD to get a good experience. I am more concerned with the latest major OS (High Sierra) still giving people problems.

Hello. I'm playing on a Mid-2012 Macbook Pro 13" with an added SSD and 4GB RAM. Most things worked fine until the last update (I'm not sure the update is the problem, just want to see if someone has the same issues). I had issues when game started and then crashed "Coherent host crashed" etc. but that's not so bad, when it starts after a few tries.

But now, in-game, when I go to another map (whether via waypoint or not) it won't load, and just stay in the loading screen with music.
Nothing happens for a long time, then when I click alt+fn+ESC (same as ctrl/alt/del in windows?) the game client closes without error.

@DrMORO.4627 said:
Is your internal storage drive a 'spinning' Hard Disk Drive (HDD), or a 'non-spinning' Solid State Drive (SSD)?
If the former, I would say Yes, an external SSD will 'improve' your playability of the Mac GW2 64-bit app, from my own experience, and possibly as mentioned by a few others here. Not cheap, yet it does not have to be a big SSD drive, and even a 128 GB SSD should do a good job.
If already have a SSD inside, then I would say your issue is possibly not from a slow storage drive, and probably from something else within the app itself or other specs of your Mac. Adding memory will also help your Mac feel snappier, yet a HDD to SSD exchange is quite a big speed improvement to make your Mac feel 'like new' speedy, kinda.

Thanks so much for such an informative breakdown! It is a HDD so I'm gonna have my fingers crossed that an external SDD will help with the problems with loading. Some other people I've talked to have mentioned partitioning as well to avoid using the mac client altogether. Considering I was raiding & pvping with not much issue before (apart from uniquely long loading screens but those weren't even that bad) it is a massive shame but, hey, it's about time I upgraded a little. I'll keep my fingers crossed 'up there' will deliver us some fixes too!

@Menadena.7482 said:
If I were to guess I would say your problem is the memory as it looks like the characters are there but the background textures are not. The minimum you can get with an iMac now is 8 GB so I am guessing it is an older machine? If the plan is to solve it with money go to someplace like OWC and see if you can up the ram . An SSD would mainly affect slow load speeds, check if you are maxing out your memory or something in the activity monitor. That will also give you an idea how your network pipe is doing as that is what things looked for me in one online game that I tried via dialup.

Hmm, intel graphics .... maybe a mac mini?

It's an older Macbook pro. I'll definitely look at my memory too as I try to troubleshoot again later. Luckily, it looks like OWC have a retailer in the UK but the installation help on the US site looks fantastic. Thanks for the tips!

@trainoasis.2706 said:
Hello. I'm playing on a Mid-2012 Macbook Pro 13" with an added SSD and 4GB RAM. Most things worked fine until the last update (I'm not sure the update is the problem, just want to see if someone has the same issues). I had issues when game started and then crashed "Coherent host crashed" etc. but that's not so bad, when it starts after a few tries.

But now, in-game, when I go to another map (whether via waypoint or not) it won't load, and just stay in the loading screen with music.
Nothing happens for a long time, then when I click alt+fn+ESC (same as ctrl/alt/del in windows?) the game client closes without error.

@Menadena.7482 said:
If I were to guess I would say your problem is the memory as it looks like the characters are there but the background textures are not. The minimum you can get with an iMac now is 8 GB so I am guessing it is an older machine? If the plan is to solve it with money go to someplace like OWC and see if you can up the ram . An SSD would mainly affect slow load speeds, check if you are maxing out your memory or something in the activity monitor. That will also give you an idea how your network pipe is doing as that is what things looked for me in one online game that I tried via dialup.

Hmm, intel graphics .... maybe a mac mini?

It's an older Macbook pro. I'll definitely look at my memory too as I try to troubleshoot again later. Luckily, it looks like OWC have a retailer in the UK but the installation help on the US site looks fantastic. Thanks for the tips!

No probs, I go to them all the time when setting up a new machine. I was not even thinking a mbp .... I use one for my dailies when on vacation but would not recommend it at all if you are expecting desktop performance in the game. You might want to look at your graphics settings and see if there is anything you can turn down.

@trainoasis.2706 said:
Hello. I'm playing on a Mid-2012 Macbook Pro 13" with an added SSD and 4GB RAM. Most things worked fine until the last update (I'm not sure the update is the problem, just want to see if someone has the same issues). I had issues when game started and then crashed "Coherent host crashed" etc. but that's not so bad, when it starts after a few tries.

But now, in-game, when I go to another map (whether via waypoint or not) it won't load, and just stay in the loading screen with music.
Nothing happens for a long time, then when I click alt+fn+ESC (same as ctrl/alt/del in windows?) the game client closes without error.

To be fair, Apple plans to drop 32 bit support anyway with the fall OS update and windows is in the process of getting rid of it too. Yes though, it would have been nice to have more time to kick the tires with the 64 bit client before the 32 bit one was no longer supported but that may not have been an option with the new maps.

For those of us refusing to leave our 32 bit client: if you try to load a new map, you can force quit the game, and restart it, and it loads you into the new map. I advise not playing pvp, though, because this takes just as much time as it gives you to at the start of the match, and every time I've tried, I come back just as the match is starting. No time to adjust your build or switch your class.

But just to make a point about how much the 64 bit client actually sucks: I would rather have to force quit and restart the 32 bit client just to get into a new map than use the 64 bit client. Seriously. And I'm saying this as someone with a new mac that exceeds all of the minimum system requirements.

Last I checked, I was getting 16 fps, with all of the graphic settings on the lowest possible setting. And I'm having problems with the resolution. If I use 3200 x 1800, DPI scaling off, and the largest interface setting, everything looks how it does in the 32 bit client, but my mouse is so small I can barely even see it.

The hitching is making me want to not play this game any more. Just try doing a jumping puzzle when the game pauses for sometimes an entire second or more during the middle of jumps because other players come into view...

Today's daily included King Jalis's Refuge jumping puzzle and Sanctum Sprint. Is this some kind of punishment for Mac players?

If this was on Windows, people would be howling in protest at how atrociously stuttery and hitchy the game is. I guess I was stupid to believe that this many months after release this problem might have been given the attention it needs. I guess I should consider myself lucky that I don't have the incredibly long load times that other people are experiencing.

It's funny that the GW2 site says "The Mac version of Guild Wars 2 runs well on" ... "MacBook Pro 13", 15", 17" (Mid-2012)", yet I'm experiencing these performance issues on a top of the line MacBook Pro 15" (TB, Late-2016) with the best available GPU.

@sunrun.4521 said:
It's funny that the GW2 site says "The Mac version of Guild Wars 2 runs well on" ... "MacBook Pro 13", 15", 17" (Mid-2012)", yet I'm experiencing these performance issues on a top of the line MacBook Pro 15" (TB, Late-2016) with the best available GPU.

That might be marketing speak. The MBP I use when on vacation is later then a 2012 and I can barely do my dailies without screaming. I would NEVER advise using a mbp for any game for the best experience.

@sunrun.4521 said:
It's funny that the GW2 site says "The Mac version of Guild Wars 2 runs well on" ... "MacBook Pro 13", 15", 17" (Mid-2012)", yet I'm experiencing these performance issues on a top of the line MacBook Pro 15" (TB, Late-2016) with the best available GPU.

That might be marketing speak. The MBP I use when on vacation is later then a 2012 and I can barely do my dailies without screaming. I would NEVER advise using a mbp for any game for the best experience.

Irresponsible of them to say such a thing any case if it's clearly false. MBPs can run games well in my experience, at the very least far better than how it's gotten with GW2 after they switched from Awsomnium to coherent for the trading post host. Runs well and best experience are two different levels anyhow! I'm fairly patient I can handle low frame rates very well, prolonged loading not so well and instability and crashes get my goat...

30-50 fps when bootcamping/ 5-15 fps on mac. Consider that I am playing on a mid 2012 Macbook with 8gb ram, I will soon put 8 gb ram more and I expect to have an increased performance when bootcamping. The 64-bit mac client is just broken .

I use a 2011 macbook pro and am considering installing/using bootcamp, would people recommend it to me?
I have a 320GB HDD and have 240GB of it available so have plenty of space to partition (i think?) and 8GB RAM.

Just to contribute to this discussion, I had the high disk IO issue with the 64bit client myself... while it wasn't quite as bad as someone who previously posted, I could not join PvP style matches because it would take so long to load that by the time I loaded in the inactivity timer had expired and I got booted immediately out. Also the character models and parts of the scenery that apparently does not load with the map would slowly fill in over a few minutes after the map loaded. The 32bit would be able to load about 10x faster and I had no issues with load times... it of course had other issues... like running out of memory.

After waiting for Arenanet to fix this issue for like a year, I bought a 480GB SSD (for $99 from Microcenter) and replaced my 500GB boot volume with it.... from the SSD it loads about as fast as it did from boot camp in Windows, it is completely playable now.

All Arenanet should need to do to replicate this problem is grab a mac with a traditional hard disk and run it in the debugger.... I can't imagine it would be that difficult to diagnose, since the game is basically unplayable from a traditional hard disk.

Also a side note from before I replaced the boot disk with a SSD... the disk IO issue would not only affect load times but it would also affect FPS, since when I would move the camera to load a different part of the scene it would start thrashing the disk to load models that were now in view and the game would freeze up while it did that, so it seems like the code that is loading the models is not running in a separate thread (or if it is, it is blocking for some reason). Therefore the FPS would drop to wait for the disk IO .... once all the models visible in the scene were loaded it would play at full FPS. A great example of this is I would stay in the royal terrace facing the asura gate... if I turned my camera the other direction the game would grind to a halt while it thrashed the disk to load the more dense collection of models in that direction.

I would like to raise an issue that completly stops me from using the 64-bit client.
I mean, I don't have any loading problem, it's even faster than the 32-bit client. I don't spend up to half an hour trying to open the client since it doesn't crash over and over again from the start. But I wouldn't know how it would last in time though, since I've never been able to use it more than ten minutes in row before quitting in frustration and reverting back to the 32-bit client.
The issue is so simple that it's laughable, yet it turns my experience to hell. I cannot control the camera, therefor I cannot go anywhere. Even running in a straight line is not managable. The settings are reversed compared to the 32-bit client, which makes the camera move to the opposite direction I'm actually trying to reach.
I play with the trackpad, , I always have (I know, hiss at me and call me a heretic if you want). I'm used to that to the point I don't see myself using a mouse at all, even on the 32-bit client where I can move perfectly well. I don't even own one to begin with, so I cannot even test it to see if it is still an issue with one.
But somehow between the 32-bit client launch and now, Apple decided that moving to the right with your fingers to go to the right was not so logical after all and they reversed that. So now, these are default settings on every mac computer BUT we can change those settings, and somehow, Anet did not consider that. And since on mac we cannot move the camera indepedantly from the direction the character is going to (at least not with the trackpad), moving from point A to B is a freaking hell. I cannot go anywhere. Let even fight. The camera moving in the opposite direction I actually want it to is ruining two years worth of learnt reflexes. I tried many times to play, I swear. But I need to focus permanently on the simple task that going forward is. And even then, I can't make it. Imagine someone forces you to write a four pages long essay with the hand you cannot write with ? Same feeling. It's just not manageable and it's extremely frustating at that because you know that you don't even have to think about it in normal circumstances.
On top of that, the 64bit client doesn't recognize the AZERTY keyboard, which changes all the shortcuts on my keyboard to other keys. Now that's something I can deal with, and I just have to spend 15 minutes changing all of them, which is fine. I even have more keys options than with my AZERTY one, which is great! I could even deal with the mystery that QWERTY keyboard is to me while using it in chat and making typos because of it. But since it doesn't solve the camera issue, I just end up going back to the 32-bit client and spend 15 minutes I could use to play to change back my shortcuts all over again. That's another reason why I cannot play with that client. Changing to QWERTY messes with my directional keys as well, and I'm not willing to change those when I know I will go back to the other client in anycase.

I can deal with the 32bit client crashes. I'm more than desapointed by the knowledge I cannot download it again in an attempt to repair it to stop it crashing when I launch it but I can deal with that issue. Even if I sometimes have to try for half an hour until it works. Even if I know the 64-bit client would work in a heartbeat. That's how much I resent playing on it.

But today, I was forced to write this post, because the first instence of LWs4 WON'T CHARGE ON 32BIT CLIENT when it perfectly does on the 64bit client.

Please Anet, add an option in the settings to reverse the right and left camera mouvement. There's already one for up and down, so why not right and left ? (And please, make the AZERTY keyboard recognized by the client too, that would be a huge step up!)

30-50 fps when bootcamping/ 5-15 fps on mac. Consider that I am playing on a mid 2012 Macbook with 8gb ram, I will soon put 8 gb ram more and I expect to have an increased performance when bootcamping. The 64-bit mac client is just broken .

Wow, ok. I'm running the mac client on a Mac pro with 64 GB of RAM, a crazy fast internal ssd, 12 cores... I get 30fps in 4k (it's capped at 30 even if you select otherwise) but it dips into the 15 fps for no reason every 5-10 seconds, as if it's a coding issue (for example when a fire animation resets). I realized that a bunch of things that shouldn't affect performance do, like the dpi interface scaling and not having the fps set to unlimited.

Even when I lower the settings it's still capped at 30fps and drops at random moments that have nothing to do with the activity on screen. I guess the mac client needs a lot of performance improvements.

Quick update! I forced myself to do the first instance of LWs4 episode 2 on my 64bit client. And well... It was a nightmare.
First things first, I consider myself to be amongst the lucky ones who don't need to wait for the map to load. Though I did notice a fps drop once I was out on the new map. I wouldn't know how the game would react to an hyperpopulated area though since I did not try that, so I cannot speak about that yet.
But the camera... Gosh, I ended up with a headache. Just the simple act of moving around was horrible. Always turning in the opposite direction I wanted to go to. Easy to say I completely failed the stealthy part. But combat was even worse. In a situation where you need to be fast and rely on your reflexes, fighting them AND enemies at the same time is almost impossible. I could not see where the ennemies were, since I was involuntarly turning my back to them most of the time. And regarding the AOE we're supposed to avoid, I was jumping right into them 80% of the time. I was downed over and over again, I did not understand half of what was happening because I was focusing so hard on my camera. I ended up hating the final fight, when I know I would have had a lot of fun with the strat in normal circumstances. I also feel like I missed out on many secundary parts of the story as I had that huge disadvantage that did not let me explore the area at my will.
We're supposed to have a good time when we play a game. Especially a game we love.

I understand that my issue is a minor one, especially compared to the people who simply can't load any background. Yet it's still annoying as hell.

I've finally managed to figure out an acceptable resolution and UI settings that look ok(ish) and still functions properly. I have to run it at a much lower resolution than the 32 bit client, and I have to turn off DPI scaling to make the interface an acceptable size. More options for scaling the interface would be nice; I have to manually change the size of my mouse in my computer's settings every time I play, otherwise it's so small I can't really see it. But since most people here seem to be playing on laptops and not imacs, I'm assuming this isn't a common issue.

I also have to have all of the graphic settings on low, except for the character model limit, because I mostly play pvp. When I had that set to low, other players in pvp matches were invisible, and even their name plates wouldn't show up unless I was targeting them. So I have to have that set to high to be able to play. But once I leave a match or exit the mists, I have to put it back down to the lowest setting or it takes several minutes to load a map completely. And I don't just mean the loading screen, but also the environment. And even when it has completely loaded, if it's a heavily populated map, the lag is unbearable. I simply cannot stand to go to Lion's Arch with this client.

A similar thing happens when I enter pvp matches. It takes much longer to load, and by the time I finally get into the map, everyone else has already checked "ready." I only have about twenty or thirty seconds before the match starts, which is barely enough time to check the teams out and decide on a strategy, and certainly not enough time to switch classes or adjust my build. Then, after the match starts, I have really low fps, really bad lag, some players are invisible, and skills don't play animations and ground-targeting skills don't highlight the ground with the green circle, so I just have to blindly click and hope I got it right. This usually lasts for the first minute of a match, and then things smooth out. It's incredibly difficult to play through, and I have to try to predict the lag or risk dying instantly.

Other than that, I guess I'm getting used to the hideous graphics and low fps. I can't do jumping puzzles to save my poor soul, especially not ones in populated areas, but I'm managing to still play. I will say, though, that being forced to switch to the 64 bit client in it's current state is forcing me to play a sub-par game compared to what I had previously on the 32 bit client, and until things are improved on the 64 bit client, Guild Wars 2 is no longer a game I'm willing to spend money on.

I read a lot of people here had success with an external SSD but it doesn't seem to work with me on 64.

I have been using 32 until this new patch which makes you stuck in the map you load in on. With the 32 bit I was using the SSD and everything was fine. Load times were good and I could actually switch maps pretty fast. Terrain always loaded for me, saw all NPCs, enemies, etc.

With the 64 though its like the SSD doesn't exist. The maps take on average 10 minutes to load to get in, and then when I get it I get absolutely nothing, just characters. Sometimes the floor doesn't load, walls do not load, harvesting nodes don't load. After about 20-30 minutes on the map walls and terrain will start to load in, but I have NEVER seen an NPC or enemy while playing the 64 bit. I am not exaggerating. All I see are names and their location will not sync (so the name will appear about 10 feet in front of me but in reality they are right next to me hitting me. Essentially I get what @inkhorn.3409 is experiencing.

For reference, I tried to join a map for the new boss in the cove on the new map at 2/50 people squad. By the time I loaded in Sandswept Isles the guy was dead, and I still had no terrain.

Basically what I am doing now is just using the 32 with each character in a different map, and when I need to switch maps I have to jump to the 64 to change, and play it on the 32.

I emailed support, and after some back and forth for a month, they basically said "nothing we can do." What?????

30-50 fps when bootcamping/ 5-15 fps on mac. Consider that I am playing on a mid 2012 Macbook with 8gb ram, I will soon put 8 gb ram more and I expect to have an increased performance when bootcamping. The 64-bit mac client is just broken .

Wow, ok. I'm running the mac client on a Mac pro with 64 GB of RAM, a crazy fast internal ssd, 12 cores... I get 30fps in 4k (it's capped at 30 even if you select otherwise) but it dips into the 15 fps for no reason every 5-10 seconds, as if it's a coding issue (for example when a fire animation resets). I realized that a bunch of things that shouldn't affect performance do, like the dpi interface scaling and not having the fps set to unlimited.

Even when I lower the settings it's still capped at 30fps and drops at random moments that have nothing to do with the activity on screen. I guess the mac client needs a lot of performance improvements.

Mate, I'm playing on a MBP mid 2012 (i.e. 4 GB ram, HDD) and I'm getting the same fps as you. Even if you're playing @ 4k, I don't know how the client can't even support your specs.

(Ignore the ping, playing on NA from EU.)

Bonus: #littlemacclientthings, trying to do a CM for a raid boss that won't load.

I'm going to be both bootcamping and getting an external SDD during the week if I can, so I'll post whether anything improves then.

Hi all!
One thought. If been using the now-unsupported 32-bit Mac app at first, then installed & started using the 64-bit Mac app in parallel, it MIGHT help with performance that you 'move' the main Gw2.dat file from the 32-bit app into the 64-bit app.
My old post here, and some of related posted before and after this may help you on how to do this.https://en-forum.guildwars2.com/discussion/comment/192646/#Comment_192646
Just a thought.

For the non-technical-types (like me) who have installed their GW2 client on an SSD, it's worth mentioning that the client repair link on the help page will no longer work correctly, since it will look for the app in your Applications folder on your main drive.

If you need to repair the game, what you will need to paste into the terminal instead is this:

NameOfDrive should be replaced with the name of your solid state drive before pasting. (I know that seems obvious, but have learned that it's better to state the obvious anyway. )

And this post is likely to be buried and lost quickly, so you might just want to paste that line (edited with your drive name) into a text file and save it on the same drive as your GW2 so you can find it when you need it.

@Cragga the Eighty Third.6015 said:
For the non-technical-types (like me) who have installed their GW2 client on an SSD, it's worth mentioning that the client repair link on the help page will no longer work correctly, since it will look for the app in your Applications folder on your main drive.

If you need to repair the game, what you will need to paste into the terminal instead is this:

NameOfDrive should be replaced with the name of your solid state drive before pasting. (I know that seems obvious, but have learned that it's better to state the obvious anyway. )

And this post is likely to be buried and lost quickly, so you might just want to paste that line (edited with your drive name) into a text file and save it on the same drive as your GW2 so you can find it when you need it.

I am not awake yet but what are they using as the link? Ideally if you have an SSD you are both booting off of it and the game is there (the genius bar will say you can not boot from an external ssd, they are wrong, plus higher level apple support people backed me up on that when I told them about a bug I found in Sierra). Anyway, that will make your path /applications... to the gw2 client which I assume is what you are using? Oh, and no worries about documents and such, you can put them on another drive if you need room (google for 'ln osx' or maybe 'moving files ssd osx'), it does require the terminal but is easier than it looks.

@Cragga the Eighty Third.6015 said:
For the non-technical-types (like me) who have installed their GW2 client on an SSD, it's worth mentioning that the client repair link on the help page will no longer work correctly, since it will look for the app in your Applications folder on your main drive.

If you need to repair the game, what you will need to paste into the terminal instead is this:

NameOfDrive should be replaced with the name of your solid state drive before pasting. (I know that seems obvious, but have learned that it's better to state the obvious anyway. )

And this post is likely to be buried and lost quickly, so you might just want to paste that line (edited with your drive name) into a text file and save it on the same drive as your GW2 so you can find it when you need it.

I am not awake yet but what are they using as the link?

On the help page, it tells you to paste "/Applications/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair" into the terminal. As far as I recall when I tried it last, it still tries to work, but seems to work by installing a new copy of GW2 into Applications, where you do not want it to be any more if you are running your computer system off the regular drive and only booting the game off the SSD. If you have moved your whole system to the SSD, and your Applications folder is there, that's a different story, and the regular link should work. Good point to bring up.

But if your system is on the main drive, and the game is off alone on the external SSD, you will want to use the link that repairs the client directly on the SSD drive.
( /volumes/NameOfDrive/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair )

(For the record, it's dangerous to paste things into the terminal that total strangers tell you to, but you can see that this is actually the official repair link, with only the location address on your computer changed. If you have GW2 tucked inside a folder on the external hard drive for some reason, you may have to add the folder name to the location, too. Probably something like /volumes/NameOfDrive/NameofFolder/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair

@Cragga the Eighty Third.6015 said:
For the non-technical-types (like me) who have installed their GW2 client on an SSD, it's worth mentioning that the client repair link on the help page will no longer work correctly, since it will look for the app in your Applications folder on your main drive.

If you need to repair the game, what you will need to paste into the terminal instead is this:

NameOfDrive should be replaced with the name of your solid state drive before pasting. (I know that seems obvious, but have learned that it's better to state the obvious anyway. )

And this post is likely to be buried and lost quickly, so you might just want to paste that line (edited with your drive name) into a text file and save it on the same drive as your GW2 so you can find it when you need it.

I am not awake yet but what are they using as the link?

On the help page, it tells you to paste "/Applications/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair" into the terminal. As far as I recall when I tried it last, it still tries to work, but seems to work by installing a new copy of GW2 into Applications, where you do not want it to be any more if you are running your computer system off the regular drive and only booting the game off the SSD. If you have moved your whole system to the SSD, and your Applications folder is there, that's a different story, and the regular link should work. Good point to bring up.

But if your system is on the main drive, and the game is off alone on the external SSD, you will want to use the link that repairs the client directly on the SSD drive.
( /volumes/NameOfDrive/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair )

(For the record, it's dangerous to paste things into the terminal that total strangers tell you to, but you can see that this is actually the official repair link, with only the location address on your computer changed. If you have GW2 tucked inside a folder on the external hard drive for some reason, you may have to add the folder name to the location, too. Probably something like /volumes/NameOfDrive/NameofFolder/Guild\ Wars\ 2\ 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2 -repair )

Thanks, yes, the '/' is a special path to whatever is the boot drive. So if you are using the SSD as your boot drive (which is the best way to do it) you can use their link to /Applications and all will be well. If you have folders that are too big for the SSD you can put soft links to them on the old hard drive (or you may not need links if no program actually calls them, like most documents) and your system will behave as if they were in the same place as before. With an SSD the more free space the better though.

BTW, minor aside for anyone who does not know the path syntax being used. The '\ ' just means it is a space and putting " marks around the file name works just as well. In this case you could also use:
"/volumes/NameOfDrive/NameofFolder/Guild Wars 2 64-bit.app/Contents/MacOS/GuildWars2" - repair

Actually that is pretty much what I used to have to do. On the 32 bit one I kept it in a folder on my old hard drive and HATED the '\ ' syntax for spaces .... spaces are supposed to be command separators unless you quote things.

I wholeheartedly agree that you should not type some random thing in that anyone says to your terminal! Go with the official command unless there are problems.

Were you able to open it the first time to download the data file (~30 GB)? If not, delete it and download it again as it might be that something got corrupted making it not a valid file. It could just be the executable permission bit got turned off, but redownloading it will fix that and other potential issues. If you were able to launch it the first time and it downloaded the data try looking at the repair article on anet's site (which we were discussing above). You are running a 64 bit version of mac os, right?

Were you able to open it the first time to download the data file (~30 GB)? If not, delete it and download it again as it might be that something got corrupted making it not a valid file. It could just be the executable permission bit got turned off, but redownloading it will fix that and other potential issues. If you were able to launch it the first time and it downloaded the data try looking at the repair article on anet's site (which we were discussing above). You are running a 64 bit version of mac os, right?

If they ever played GW2 directly from the 32bit mac beta client within the last 4yrs they must be on at least Lion so don't think it's worth asking that, the original client was able to work on Snow Leopard (The final 32bit OS X) till they updated the mac client in 2014 (Anet themselves said it worked fine in China, where it was released first but it caused many a problem for us mac users, mostly trading post problems with text format, the fix for that then was to update our client, which forced out the Snow Leopard users)

The 32bit client alone often makes my mac hot, not as bad as it used to, often would exceed 100ºC first 3-4yrs. My mac's always been odd with it's cooling, it can cool too much in winter and not enough summer, had periods where the fan would be terribly grating and the odd warning errors with my fan from the system but I did nothing and it fixes itself eventually, anyhow not encouraging overall with the feedback with the 64bit client and lack of staff response doesn't help. That is a good point though, GW2 is not the most intense app on my computer, I expend more RAM using my browsers, yet indeed the heat GW2 generates is far worse.

Check how much of the cpu it is chewing up .... the gw client is cpu-bound so if you are constantly in crowded areas and such it will keep having high hits on your cpu. Then you have the problems of not a great amount of cooling (it is why we are getting a new mac pro soon) and you start having even more heat and inefficiencies.

@Menadena.7482 said:
Check how much of the cpu it is chewing up .... the gw client is cpu-bound so if you are constantly in crowded areas and such it will keep having high hits on your cpu. Then you have the problems of not a great amount of cooling (it is why we are getting a new mac pro soon) and you start having even more heat and inefficiencies.

Hello, I am on Imac pro with high sierra 10.13.3 and the game is just great on my 5k screen. I was on snow , and then leopard and... on my other mac and always had issue, crash and crash and... this time, the only issue I have on my new mac is a message when I open the launcher and it tell me " error 2GO ram" and I have 128Go ram ^^ but when I connect and play no issue, no crash no nothing so enjoyable to finaly play without crash. I have chek on the monitor activity of the ram and the result are about : around 3Go reel memory , around 8Go reel virtual memory. May be 128 GO ram is too much ^^

On my work Mac mini, the 64-bit native app was already 'playable' and 'stable', at low settings and windowed small. The NVIDIA GeForce NOW app at first ran a built-in "Test my network" analysis tool, and said my work network was 'NOT optimal' for streaming. Hmmm, continued anyways, and it was way too choppy and totally 'unplayable'. My work network is totally firewall-ed, so not for game streaming, I get it. (ONLY AFTER work hours...)

On my home MBP13, the story was totally opposite. Even though running off an external Thunderbolt 2 SSD drive (best for home AND work GW2-ing...), the 64-bit Mac app would only run for 10~30 minutes until it would crash, and I have to type & send an in-app crash report. The MBP13 would need a restart after this every time, or opening & clicking "Play", the 64-bit Mac app would freeze/lockup the entire system, requiring a hard power down and restart with a long press of the power button. Could not play long and stably at home at all, without the fear of DC-ing in the middle of any event or story. The NVIDIA GeForce NOW says my home network is an "Excellent network"(!) and optimal for streaming. Okay, let's see... WOW! THIS IS THE FUTURE!!! Playing was very smooth, and way higher and stable FPS at lowest graphics setting I am used to. I have not fiddled with the graphic settings that much, yet could easily think that I can 'up' a few things to have a much nicer graphical experience while playing GW2, even at home. LOVE IT!!! Well, this also means that I would NOT be playing the 64-bit Mac app at home for while, unless major improvements in performance & stability to the native app. Really wish this to happen, yet this unfortunately has not arrived yet. Depending on the subscription price, I might just continue playing GW2 via NVIDIA GeForce NOW even after beta ends.

My initial thoughts.

Anyone else playing GW2 on NVIDIA GeForce NOW Mac Beta program?
How is your experience, compared to the native 64-bit Mac app?